Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

Welcome to the mountainhome of the dwarves! Starting out with a hardy band of seven pioneers, you will be beset on all sides by the threat of starvation, exposure, rampant idiocy, inexperience, tantrums, monkey attacks, hostile goblins, kleptomaniacal kobolds, accidental drownings, those goddamn hippy elves, being set on fire, upper class nobles that will make lives hell for your peasantry, and the mortal enemies of the dwarves, elephants. ELEPHANTS! OH GOD THEY'RE IN THE FORTRESS!

So you start out with a tiny band of 7 dwarves, a few wagons, mules, horses, and enough supplies to make sure you don't starve... maybe.
With a little luck (and if those goddamn monkeys dont steal all your food off the wagon again), your fortress will make it past the first winter. Or more likely it will collapse and you'll start up a new fortress, avoiding the mistakes of the first.

FAQ
AAAAA LETTERS EVERYWHERE OH GOD HOW DO I DO STUFF?!
A few keys will come up a lot. Pressing these keys will bring up a yellow X cursor which you control using the arrow keys. PROTIP: use the keypad to move the cursor around- it's more comfortable.

Q - assigns orders at workshops and structures, or used to create rooms from a placed structure, like tables, beds, archery targets, etc, or to destroy them.
T - much like Q, but works for sTructures. Use this when you want to examine/destroy a structure that is not a workshop. Also useful for peeking at the contents of a workshop to see how cluttered it is.
V - Examines an individual dwarf, where you can look at their stats, gear, thoughts and alter their job list.
K - If you'd like to see if that U is an attacking Unicorn or a friendly hUman trader, this is the key you want. Pressing enter examines the object in greater detail (if any).
D - Designates an area for tasks. Hit enter to start dragging out a rectangle, enter to stop. Or hold down the mouse button and draw it in. Everything in this area will now be designated for whatever task you had selected, from Digging out rock, cutting down trees, or picking plants, or whatever else it might have been. Use this to dig out your dwarf-hole.

ALSO!
Z - Brings up your fortress report and tells you how depressingly low you are on food.
U - displays a list of all units on the map, along with current job. Useful for finding idlers and wild animals
< and > - Change the levevel displayed by one (up and down, respectively). Since you'll be using these a lot, it might be wise to remap the keys (I use / and * on the keypad). To do this, press ESC and use the "Key Bindings" option ("move/view cursor up (Z)" and "down (Z)" )

I built a bridge, but it looked ugly so I demolished it. The new one never gets built because of pathing errors!
Common mistake. Never cut off the fortress. The dwarf builders are trying to get to material/worksites on the other side of the river/chasm, but cant because there's no bridge anymore. Avoid this by always having spare bridges. If this has already happened, build stone blocks at your masonry workshop and use those to build your new bridge, ensuring that you're using accessible materials.

They sent a diplomat from the mountainhomes and he's killing all my dorfs! What kind of a diplomat is he?!
Aye, the outpost liaison who comes with the dwarven caravan is a delicate fellow. When he arrives, ensure that your outpost leader (use the N key to find him) has all jobs turned off, so that he has the time to meet the diplomat. Otherwise the poor guy will feel unaccepted and get miserable/insane/berserk.

It took me ages to figure out farming in the previous version. Now what?!
Now you can just farm to your heart's content over any soil/sand tile, with no need of irrigation. (To mine on rock tiles use the good old floodgate system).

How do I change the game resolution/settings/colours/etc?
In the data/init directory is init.txt, a well documented file which contains all sorts of DF settings.

Can I run this on a Mac?
User Sleep reports that Crossover works fine. I've no experience with this though.

This game is running slooooooooow! I thought ASCII graphics don't need a fast PC?
Make sure your starting area is suitably small for your PC. If you're already in the middle of a game, it may also help to turn off weather and/or temperature in the data\init\init.txt file. There is also a possibility you have set an FPS_CAP in the very same file.

What happens if I do this?
Just try it first! It's no fun if we tell you that you would have doomed all your dwarves to a horrible agonizing death beforehand. No fun at all!
Besides, it just means you get to do it better next time.

How do I back up my save game?
A good idea, since the game is only in alpha, and does crash (rarely), but if it does, it can corrupt your entire world.
Make a copy of the data/save directory and keep it somewhere safe. To restore, delete your entire data/save directory and replace it with your copy. NOT DELETING IT FIRST WILL CAUSE ERRORS. For the backing up of save games, you can also go into the init.txt file (\data\init\init.txt) and set
[AUTOSAVE:NONE] to
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
and
[AUTOBACKUP:NO] to
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
You can make the autosave yearly as well, and making autobackup set to yes will make each autosave a new save instead of overwriting your current one.

Am I not the warrior, who fought the black bear of the Jungle of Shin while all around me berries ignited?
Am I not the warrior, who threw the druid of the Worried Forest at the highest priest of the human capital, Crabpuzzle?
Am I not the warrior, who lead the men of Infuencedwheel against the evil of Suducehands upon mount Gallows Rock?
Am I not the warrior, who with great cunning blinded the cyclops of Nasty Steppe with a single stone, also blackening his ears?
Am I not the warrior, who avoided the undead in plain sight at the Lyrical Dune, the desert of red sand and limestone?
Did I not bare witness to the ettin of the Ocean of Dooms, surrounded by a writhing mass of vile, hairless vermin?
At yet, I am shaken.
I now make my leave for Earthenhermits with my truest friends, Brock Samson, Eddie Izzard, Samus Aran and Shawn; truelly Earthenhermits is the only place for me now.

Dawted. The only game in existence that allows the player to gouge out a small child's eyes, break their limbs and pierce their stomach with a pike before throwing their body down a staircase after they stop moving. The sheer brutality of the combat system is worth the price of learning to see the matrix.

So I'm going to start anew, but this time, I'm going to make MASSIVE OBSIDIAN DWARF TOWER.

Must find obsidian-heavy map. Perhaps I can find a place with sand AND obsidian and make a gigantic black tower with red windows. I'm not going to make the entire thing out of blocks since I want to finish this before I die.

Arg... I have my Fortress to "that point". I have tested out what I wanted to test out. I have gotten it so the most fearsome Goblin raid can only claim 1-2 Dwarves, tops. I have a King in a full royal quarters. Everything is smoothed or engraved. My military is fully equiped and the fortress is entirely self sufficient. This map is without Goblin Towers, Chasms or Pits.

I really did want to wait until the next version before starting a new fortress, but it looks as if I have no choice.

Start a pit mining operation that runs off slave labor with 'airlocks' installed for seasonal food shipments and watch the poor sods go slowly insane, and make certain to provide them with cats. Then butcher them, perhaps by cycling the 'airlock' a few times.

Hey, guys, I am a modder now. I made hobbits, some dwarves like them for their "hairy feet", other for their "positive outlook on life".
I pretty much copy/pasted kobolds, made them [GOOD], and really unactive. I found some in adventure mode and they were all asleep in a heap. :3

In other news my mountain-top fortress is in tip-top shape and still no seige. Mayhaps the mountain is cursed and the goblins fear it...
I shall dig deep and see...

My game is so slow now, and I blame it on the three screens' worth of pets I have. I've killed all the strays, but the owned animals won't stop rutting. I've got meat coming out of my ears and nigh on a thousand bones sitting around waiting for my child prodigy bonecarver to grow up - which will take for ever thanks to the aforementioned slowdown.

I think I may have to do a PETA and just hope my dwarfs don't all have a collective tantrum when they see their beloved pets thrown into the lava en masse.

So, apparently just because a tile is called "Joyous Wilds" does not mean it's a nice place to live, because the Wilds were rather Joyous while they were murdering my poor dwarves. In a related note, a bloody raccoon murdered 2 dogs and a dwarf and now there are 4 of his buddies sitting near where I was chopping wood.

This game left me behind... This "third dimension" thing confuses and infuriates me. I remember the good ol' days when there were only two dimensions and life was as sweet as a ripe peach on a Summers day...

This game left me behind... This "third dimension" thing confuses and infuriates me. I remember the good ol' days when there were only two dimensions and life was as sweet as a ripe peach on a Summers day...

Just wait 'til the 4th dimension mode is added. You'll get to build a fortress in the year 1000 and 1051 at the same time, causing ripple effects that change the technology in the 1051 game as you play.

Of course, by then, spiecal computers will have to be built just to play it.

This game left me behind... This "third dimension" thing confuses and infuriates me. I remember the good ol' days when there were only two dimensions and life was as sweet as a ripe peach on a Summers day...

In a lot of ways, the game got quite a bit easier. Farming is now as simple as digging down one layer, in most situations.

Nothing really stops you from playing only in two dimensions if you wish, just find a mountain and dig into the side.

This game left me behind... This "third dimension" thing confuses and infuriates me. I remember the good ol' days when there were only two dimensions and life was as sweet as a ripe peach on a Summers day...

Just wait 'til the 4th dimension mode is added. You'll get to build a fortress in the year 1000 and 1051 at the same time, causing ripple effects that change the technology in the 1051 game as you play.

Of course, by then, spiecal computers will have to be built just to play it.

This game left me behind... This "third dimension" thing confuses and infuriates me. I remember the good ol' days when there were only two dimensions and life was as sweet as a ripe peach on a Summers day...

Just wait 'til the 4th dimension mode is added. You'll get to build a fortress in the year 1000 and 1051 at the same time, causing ripple effects that change the technology in the 1051 game as you play.

Of course, by then, spiecal computers will have to be built just to play it.

It might even have graphics by then.

And then your dorfs will just fall in the river and drown despite being right next to land.

This game left me behind... This "third dimension" thing confuses and infuriates me. I remember the good ol' days when there were only two dimensions and life was as sweet as a ripe peach on a Summers day...

Just wait 'til the 4th dimension mode is added. You'll get to build a fortress in the year 1000 and 1051 at the same time, causing ripple effects that change the technology in the 1051 game as you play.

Of course, by then, spiecal computers will have to be built just to play it.

It might even have graphics by then.

And then your dorfs will just fall in the river and drown despite being right next to land.

NASA on the new craze, Dwarf Fortress

"It started out as a joke, but now we have a healthy fear of carp, and anything more then 2 dimensions"

This game left me behind... This "third dimension" thing confuses and infuriates me. I remember the good ol' days when there were only two dimensions and life was as sweet as a ripe peach on a Summers day...

Just wait 'til the 4th dimension mode is added. You'll get to build a fortress in the year 1000 and 1051 at the same time, causing ripple effects that change the technology in the 1051 game as you play.

Of course, by then, spiecal computers will have to be built just to play it.

It might even have graphics by then.

And then your dorfs will just fall in the river and drown despite being right next to land.

NASA on the new craze, Dwarf Fortress

"It started out as a joke, but now we have a healthy fear of carp, and anything more then 2 dimensions"

Oh man just think if you could launch space ships in Dwarf Fortress. Maybe a dwarf NASA. Stone centrifuges!

God damn I guess I trained up some fuckin spartans. I have 6 dwarfs with wrestler, swords, armor, and shield stats up to legendary and full adamatine armor. They chewed through 25 fire spirits in less than 30 seconds with little to no injuries.

I want skeletal warriors digging corpses up from the nearby town so I can increase my ranks.

I want to ambush attacking Goblin Forces with undead dire wolves to add their souls to my horde.

I want to slowly enslave the populace of the nearby human town, so my Vampires can feed at night before unleashing horrible, bloody fury.

Is that so wrong?

I was thinking of something more basic like integrating my tombs with my defenses so that goblins would have something truly terrifying to speak of when the name Luckytombs is bought up. The whole idea of making your own wizard tower and a cross between adventuring and fortress building works too.

I want skeletal warriors digging corpses up from the nearby town so I can increase my ranks.

I want to ambush attacking Goblin Forces with undead dire wolves to add their souls to my horde.

I want to slowly enslave the populace of the nearby human town, so my Vampires can feed at night before unleashing horrible, bloody fury.

Is that so wrong?

I was thinking of something more basic like integrating my tombs with my defenses so that goblins would have something truly terrifying to speak of when the name Luckytombs is bought up. The whole idea of making your own wizard tower and a cross between adventuring and fortress building works too.

I also picture making portals to elemental planes be the end-all be-all project for any would-be mage, or a nice natural disaster for dwarf forts to be built around. For example, an Unbound Earth Portal would be constantly spitting ore and rock out, so any tunnels you dig in the, say, 1 to 20 squares around it would fill in over time. An unbound water portal would flood an area of the map like an aquifer, turning a canyon into an impromptu lake, or causing huge waterfalls to spread under it.

And, of course, all portals would bring with them all kinds of elementals of varying strengths, which would give you all kinds of neat stuff for killing them (Earth Elementals would shit gems, for example).

My theory behind this would be mages could do this on accident (an Earth Mage might create one as he dies, for example) or intentionally during a siege...

I want skeletal warriors digging corpses up from the nearby town so I can increase my ranks.

I want to ambush attacking Goblin Forces with undead dire wolves to add their souls to my horde.

I want to slowly enslave the populace of the nearby human town, so my Vampires can feed at night before unleashing horrible, bloody fury.

Is that so wrong?

I was thinking of something more basic like integrating my tombs with my defenses so that goblins would have something truly terrifying to speak of when the name Luckytombs is bought up. The whole idea of making your own wizard tower and a cross between adventuring and fortress building works too.

I also picture making portals to elemental planes be the end-all be-all project for any would-be mage, or a nice natural disaster for dwarf forts to be built around. For example, an Unbound Earth Portal would be constantly spitting ore and rock out, so any tunnels you dig in the, say, 1 to 20 squares around it would fill in over time. An unbound water portal would flood an area of the map like an aquifer, turning a canyon into an impromptu lake, or causing huge waterfalls to spread under it.

And, of course, all portals would bring with them all kinds of elementals of varying strengths, which would give you all kinds of neat stuff for killing them (Earth Elementals would shit gems, for example).

My theory behind this would be mages could do this on accident (an Earth Mage might create one as he dies, for example) or intentionally during a siege...

I want skeletal warriors digging corpses up from the nearby town so I can increase my ranks.

I want to ambush attacking Goblin Forces with undead dire wolves to add their souls to my horde.

I want to slowly enslave the populace of the nearby human town, so my Vampires can feed at night before unleashing horrible, bloody fury.

Is that so wrong?

I was thinking of something more basic like integrating my tombs with my defenses so that goblins would have something truly terrifying to speak of when the name Luckytombs is bought up. The whole idea of making your own wizard tower and a cross between adventuring and fortress building works too.

I also picture making portals to elemental planes be the end-all be-all project for any would-be mage, or a nice natural disaster for dwarf forts to be built around. For example, an Unbound Earth Portal would be constantly spitting ore and rock out, so any tunnels you dig in the, say, 1 to 20 squares around it would fill in over time. An unbound water portal would flood an area of the map like an aquifer, turning a canyon into an impromptu lake, or causing huge waterfalls to spread under it.

And, of course, all portals would bring with them all kinds of elementals of varying strengths, which would give you all kinds of neat stuff for killing them (Earth Elementals would shit gems, for example).

My theory behind this would be mages could do this on accident (an Earth Mage might create one as he dies, for example) or intentionally during a siege...

"Miner cancels dig: Beheld the underdark. Looked away."

And then a diety of the element used to make the portal would show up with a legion of angels and ghosts-dwarves of your past forts and keell youu for this act against the very fabric of the universe!

Adding races to this game is great fun, not to mention making adventure mode more interesting. Currently I only have hobbits, but I might add a bunch of 'em quickly today.

Their first king was called Mudung Squarelocks. :3 Hobbity
Ido Muffintwinkle is the current king. I think the names stem from giving them the [GOOD] tag.

Hobbot gods on show, because they fit so well:
-Shethbah the Lacy Oracle, depicted as a male hobbit, associated with inspiration and painting.
-Apap the Leafy Brains, depicted as a female hobbit, associated with fish, fishing and scholarship.
-Irol, depicted as a male hobbit, associated with travelers, festivals and fertility.
:]